Appeal – Respondent judicial authority requesting appellant's extradition to serve remainder of sentence following various offences

Neuman v Circuit Court of Katowice, Poland: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court: 15 February 2013

Following the issue in 2012 of a European Arrest Warrant by the respondent judicial authority in respect of the appellant, a district judge ordered his return to Poland to serve the balance of sentences totalling two years which had been imposed on him aged 17 for non-residential burglary and robbery committed in 1999 (the order). The appellant had served all but one month and 22 days, having apparently been released early on the basis of good behaviour.

The appellant had claimed before the district judge that he had asked his probation officer in 2005 whether he could come to the UK and had been told that he could. In November 2006, he had come to the UK to look for work and his partner had arrived in the UK about two months later. At the time of the proceedings, they were both employed in the UK and had a daughter aged two. The appellant had further claimed that, in 2007, he had been contacted by the Polish authorities informing him that he should return to complete the necessary requirements, but that he had chosen not to do so. The appellant appealed against the order. The appellant submitted, amongst other things, that he ought not to be extradited on the basis of his rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The appeal would be allowed.

In all the circumstances, it would be disproportionate to return the appellant to Poland. There was no question but that if the warrant had been issued within a reasonable time, because the lapse of five years had been totally unreasonable, then it would have been virtually impossible for the appellant to have succeeded in his appeal, having raised article 8 of the convention. However, the lapse of time had made all the difference when coupled with the short period of the sentence that remained to be served (see [6], [7] of the judgment).

Amelia Nice (instructed by Kaim Todner) for the appellant; Hannah Hinton (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service) for the respondent.